As data networks have expanded to include the transmission of various forms of information such as voice communication, network quality has become increasingly important in network administration. Measures of the quality of a network include, for example, effective bandwidth, congestion, packet delay, jitter, and/or packet loss rate. Because an end-to-end connection within a network can include multiple segments and/or links, quality measurements can be determined separately for each segment within the end-to-end connection or for the end-to-end connection as a whole. The quality values associated with a particular link and/or segment can fluctuate, particularly if the network employs a connectionless best effort protocol (e.g., internet protocol (IP)).
The variation of quality measurements associated with a link and/or segment are even more pronounced within a wireless network than in a wired network. The quality of a wireless network can change rapidly because mobile devices can easily associate and disassociate with the wireless network. For example, a wireless network can rapidly become congested resulting in a degradation of quality of service and complaints from users when several mobile terminals associate with a wireless segment and/or link in a short period of time. The inherent variation of a wireless network is further exacerbated by the non-linear relationship between quality measurements and the number of mobile terminals within the wireless network. Because current network protocols are not designed to adequately measure the quality of a dynamic wireless network, a need exists for a method and an apparatus for measuring quality within a wireless network.